Daisy Watts
Nov 26, 2023
Neuralink, a brain implant startup founded by Elon Musk, has raised $43 million in additional funding, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The startup develops implantable chips capable of reading brain waves and aiding in the treatment of people with neurological disorders.
The development emerged six months after The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed the company to begin testing its brain implant on humans, according to a filing analysed by TechCrunch.
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However, the FDA rejected the company’s application two months ago due to safety concerns.
As per the filing, the recently accumulated funds have come from 32 investors, taking a toll on company’s total funding from $280 million to $323 million. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund remained the biggest donor among the 32.
Since the valuation hasn’t been made public by Neuralink, a Reuters report in June hinted the valuation to be around $5 billion after private stock transactions.
The San Francisco-based research centre is working towards enhancing the brain-machine implant procedure.
Since coming into being in 2016 by Elon Musk, Neuralink has been devising implantable brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) which come in the form of small, flexible threads which would be inserted into the brain, reported by TechCrunch.
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While this technology is based on two-way communication –reading signals from the brain and also sending them back — the company with this innovation aims to let the brain communicate with external devices.
In a video shared by Musk in April 2021, a monkey named Pager — a nine-year-old Macaque — could be seen playing MindPong, a video game, with his mind using a brain chip.
In a thread of tweets posted later, Musk explained that the first Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind better than someone using thumbs.
By fusing humans with artificial intelligence, Neuralink is working to implant wireless chips to help cure a series of neurological disorders including memory loss, hearing loss, blindness paralysis, depression, insomnia, seizures, addiction, brain damage, and strokes, among others.
With critics and former employees expressing concerns regarding a purportedly toxic work environment, the company has remained under strict scrutiny for its workplace culture and ethical research practices.
